[1.12.x] Horizontal Landing Aid Redux

[linuxgurugamer]

Forum user @Diazo made this a while ago, but he hasn't been around in almost a year, so I'm adopting it.  Original thread is here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/77486-13jan2817-landing-aid-kill-your-horizontal-velocity-to-land-now-optionally-using-rcs/&

Kill your horizontal velocity before landing, or hover over a selected point on the ground.

Availability

• Source: https://github.com/linuxgurugamer/RCSLandAid
• Download: https://spacedock.info/mod/1872/Horizontal Landing Aid Redux
• License: GPLv3

Dependencies

• Module Manager
• Click Through Blocker
• ToolbarController

This mod requires a working SAS to function. Make sure you have a pilot kerbal or a high-enough level probe core along for this mod to function.

Want to control your vertical velocity?

 when not activated

Automated Vertical Velocity Control

 Button when showing Blue. Button also shows Red and Gray (or transparent to show window color technically).

The button has 3 colors:

Gray: Mod is off and will not activate.

Left-Click to go to Zero Mode (Blue)

Right-Click to go to Location Hover mode (Red) and opens the following window: 

Blue: Mod is activated and will cancel your horizontal velocity as fast as it can

Left-Click to turn mod off (Gray)

 

Yellow Border: When the mod is actively controlling the vessel, the icon will have a yellow border around it.

Engage Height: Regardless of which mode the mod is in, it will not activate unless you vessel is within 1000 meters of the ground. As the mod zero's out your velocity relative to a point on the surface, zeroing out too high wastes fuel as your vessels' sideways velocity is higher the then sideways velocity of the ground under it. This limit is adjustable by right-clicking the LA button and entering the height you wish to engage at.

SAS: SAS must be enabled to use the mod. In fact, the mod works by controlling the SAS direction. This means that while this mod is enabled, the vessel control keys (WASDQE) are not effective as the mod will override their inputs as soon as you release them.

RCS: While vessel tip is the primary method of control, if the RCS system is on and there are RCS blocks on the vessel, the mod will use the RCS to help out. Particularly on lower gravity worlds, this speeds up the rate at which the vessel responds as even the maximum default tip of 20° only provides a sideways acceleration of about 15% the force of gravity currently pulling downwards on the vessel. Note that the RCSsystem does not affect if the mod is engaged or not, it is optional. (Unlike the SAS system which must be engaged for the mod to control the vessel.)

To Use:

Zero Mode (Blue): In this mode, the mod will simply cancel your horizontal velocity. Once canceled it will keep you hovering over whichever point on the ground you are over. This is intended for landing a skycrane with a horizontal velocity of zero so there is no chance of tipping over from having too much sideways momentum.

Location Hover (Red): When you enter this mod, a red arrow will attach itself to your mouse. Left-click on the ground to set a target location, the red arrow will now attach itself to this point. This mod will then take your vessel and attempt to hover over the red arrow. Note that it is likely your vessel will overshoot on its first approach I am still tweaking the move-to-point math to get it exactly as I want. I will further tweak this based on people's reports.

Note: For the purposes of location, the part you have selected as the "Control From Here" part is what the mod will keep above the target. If you have a docking port on the side of your vessel, you can "Control from Here" and rotate your vessel around that point for a precision landing.

Note2: Right clicking to enter Location Hover mode also opens the settings screen.

Settings: (Saved on a per vessel basis)

Engage Height: The mod will only take control at or below this height above terrain. Note that the default altimeter at the top of the screen displays height above sea level. Defaults to 500m.

Max Tip: How far off vertical the mod will allow the vessel to go. Defaults to 20° Larger vessels with a slower torque response may wish to lower this.

Speed%: This is the speed with, or the aggressiveness, the mod uses. A lower number will result in a slower approach to target and a slower max speed while traveling. In percent, defaults to 100%. Really large vessels, or odd configurations (such as engines above the center of mass) may benefit from changing this number but player preference will vary.

Use RCS only?: You can have this mod use the RCS only to move your vessel if you set the max tip to 0 and engage the RCS thrusters. Note that this will be highly vessel dependent, it can be painfully slow on larger vessels as effective RCS thrust is so low.

Edited July 21, 2022 by linuxgurugamer

[Tio Oly]

Yeeiiiiii     Thank you so much!   Diazo's mods are a must have.... 

Installing from CKAN and testing right now!

[Observe]

Horizontal Landing Aid Redux doesn't work for KSP 1.5.x. I've installed latest versions of this mod, but when engaged (Blue or Red), the craft just wanders around erratically. I am familiar with operation, because I've been using this mod extensively with KSP 1.3.x. I have functioning RCS etc on my craft/s. Thought I'd mention. Thanks.

[linuxgurugamer]

11 hours ago, Observe said:

Horizontal Landing Aid Redux doesn't work for KSP 1.5.x. I've installed latest versions of this mod, but when engaged (Blue or Red), the craft just wanders around erratically. I am familiar with operation, because I've been using this mod extensively with KSP 1.3.x. I have functioning RCS etc on my craft/s. Thought I'd mention. Thanks.

More information is needed, including a log file, the craft file, and if possible,a save file

Also, did you ever use it i. 1.4?

[StahnAileron]

On ‎10‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 8:20 PM, Observe said:

Horizontal Landing Aid Redux doesn't work for KSP 1.5.x. I've installed latest versions of this mod, but when engaged (Blue or Red), the craft just wanders around erratically. I am familiar with operation, because I've been using this mod extensively with KSP 1.3.x. I have functioning RCS etc on my craft/s. Thought I'd mention. Thanks.

 

On ‎11‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 8:19 AM, linuxgurugamer said:

More information is needed, including a log file, the craft file, and if possible,a save file

Also, did you ever use it i. 1.4?

Chiming in here: In 1.5.1, HLAR seems to be very erratic compared to the last time I used it extensively back in KSP 1.2.x. (I skipped 1.3.x and 1.4.x). The log file doesn't seem to have anything from HLAR mentioned other than loading it. 

I tried HLAR in a test install with just KSP 1.5.1, Toolbar & ToolbarController, Vertical Velocity Control, AGExt, and ClickTroughBlocker (all latest according to MiniAVC) with a stock-part craft. As soon as HLAR is engaged, you can see the control indicators going nuts, even when the craft perfectly still and vertical. In the air, the craft kinda wobbles like how a spinning top does when it's winding down. Eventually, the feedback wobble causes the craft to just tip over into an unrecoverable state (too much tilt with too much horizontal velocity) and crashes it.

Further testing shows that I can get HLAR to not wobble. However, it takes some effort to do so and when it does happen, it actually stops attempting to kill any horizontal velocity. It'll just attempt to get back to full vertical and just stay that way. While getting back to the vertical, it's SAS control is extremely jerky. (It's much more like a person tapping the controls than a program adjusting it.) Even with Precise Control engaged, the inputs are noticeable jerky, though not as bad with Coarse Control.

Ah... Found something odd. Using Vertical Velocity Control to control my throttle, I noticed that HLAR reacts to whether or not the vertical velocity is positive or negative. With a negative vertical velocity, it tilts against the horizontal drift. Still jerky, but it seems to do what it's supposed to. With positive velocity, for some reason it tilts INTO the drift. If I hover and Ping-Pong back and forth between negative & positive velocity, I get the erratic behavior I noted before. (I'm guessing exactly zero vertical velocity is throwing it for a loop and hence why the controls go nuts.)

Also, didn't this mod have a "fly to point and hover" function? (Right-click button, then left-click on terrain. Turns the button red.) This doesn't seem to be working much, if at all.

And apparently getting it to lock into straight vertical with no attempt at canceling horizontal velocities is as simple as right-clicking on the button and keeping HLAR's settings window open. The moment the window is closed, it'll start tilting the craft again.

I think that's everything I discovered so far. If I find anything else (it's really late and I should be in bed), I'll post more. (If it isn't obvious, I typed this up during testing. I apologize for the lack of conciseness.)

[linuxgurugamer]

Very helpful, thanks.

It's never really worked well for me, so I rarely use it, if at all.  But the thing about the tipping going the wrong direction when having a positive vertical velocity is interesting. 

I do think I found the problem with the right click, I wasn't aware it wasn't working

[Superfluous J]

Aww I was hoping this was an aid in coming in low and horizontal over the ground at 2km/s and skimming your way to a stop like a pro.

Still, very cool mod. I used something similar (whose name escapes me) back in the dark days when using every finger on both hands - most on 2 or more keys - wasn't second nature.

Really, does anybody else find it weird that we frequently do things on strict time limits with deadly consequences, with about 20 keys AND the mouse? No wonder people need this mod.

[Observe]

@StahnAileron Thank you for confirming. I also ran with a test install, stripped down to bare minimum. This mod worked perfectly with KSP 1.3.x, but 1.5.x behaves as you describe. Very erratic and uncontrollable. Currently, I'm using a RCSLandAid.dll from pre-1.5. It "kind of works". Better than current dll, but still not very usable. Thanks.

[StahnAileron]

9 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Aww I was hoping this was an aid in coming in low and horizontal over the ground at 2km/s and skimming your way to a stop like a pro.

Still, very cool mod. I used something similar (whose name escapes me) back in the dark days when using every finger on both hands - most on 2 or more keys - wasn't second nature.

Really, does anybody else find it weird that we frequently do things on strict time limits with deadly consequences, with about 20 keys AND the mouse? No wonder people need this mod.

That used to be the case. At least according to the demo video I saw showcasing a landing on Minmus, I think. I didn't get to use it much as intended like that though. (Especially in conjunction with Vertical Velocity Control.) I wound using it to build hypersonic MK2 VTOL survey planes. There was something oddly satisfying about just flying around Kerbin for a while, landing and hopping site-to-site doing surface science, tehn flying back to a base for landing and recovery. (I used to have Kerbin-Side installed.) And of course there was getting the CoM vs DCOM and thrust balanced JUST right.

And just as a shout out, @linuxgurugamer is keeping it possible for me to do that again now and hopefully into the future. (He's taken over many of the utility mods I used to design and control my VTOLs.)

6 hours ago, Observe said:

@StahnAileron Thank you for confirming. I also ran with a test install, stripped down to bare minimum. This mod worked perfectly with KSP 1.3.x, but 1.5.x behaves as you describe. Very erratic and uncontrollable. Currently, I'm using a RCSLandAid.dll from pre-1.5. It "kind of works". Better than current dll, but still not very usable. Thanks.

Not a problem. I noticed the issue last week as well, but didn't want to say anything as I have a couple of mods that have auto-piloting functions. I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something dumb.

On the flip-side, it got me to ask @SuicidalInsanity to add an attitude/reaction control thruster ((i.e. air-breathing RCS) to his MK2Expansion mod for easier atmospheric VTOL control. He was kind enough to whip up a cfg file for one using a part already available in his mod.

[linuxgurugamer]

New release, 3.3.1:

• Fixed right-click not allowing setting target on ground
• Fixed reversed parameters for Vector3.ProjectOnPlane(b,a), which replaced Vector3.Exclude(a,b)

When I adopted the mod, I updated some function calls, specifically the Vectore3.Exclude, which was replaced by Vector3.ProjectOnPlane,  What wasn't obvious since the parameter names were different was that the parameters needed to be reversed.  

Seems to be working much better now, please let me know how it goes

[Observe]

Bingo! That appears to have done the trick. Thank you for this and all the other mods you support.

I'll be using this quite a bit over time and will let you know if I encounter any oddities.

Thanks.

[linuxgurugamer]

New release, 3.3.1.1:

• Removed debug log spam

[InvaderGIR]

Hello.

 Got a small problem. The button graphic is a purple square, resulting in being unable to tell what mode it might be in. Forgive my ignorance but even after looking around I haven't found any other fix. Would there happen to be something I've overlooked? 

I've uninstalled and reinstalled both the mod and KSP. Verified file integrity and so forth. Other than that I'm at a bit of a loss.

[linuxgurugamer]

53 minutes ago, InvaderGIR said:

Hello.

 Got a small problem. The button graphic is a purple square, resulting in being unable to tell what mode it might be in. Forgive my ignorance but even after looking around I haven't found any other fix. Would there happen to be something I've overlooked? 

I've uninstalled and reinstalled both the mod and KSP. Verified file integrity and so forth. Other than that I'm at a bit of a loss.

Log file, please

Also, are you starting it in opengl, or a non-standard dx setting?

Edited December 27, 2018 by linuxgurugamer

[InvaderGIR]

Sorry for the delay. Dropbox says I need a name to share files with, I tried to message you privately about that but I seem to be too new to be allowed to do that.

As for opengl or non-standard dx, I'm afraid I just don't know. I start up through the Steam client and it starts up, I presume, normally. Not sure if that's all that helpful, I'm afraid.

 

[linuxgurugamer]

With Dropbox, just right-click on the file and select the option which says to copy sharing link to clipboard, then paste that

The purple box seems to indicate the mod isn't installed properly

[BudgetHedgehog]

1 hour ago, linuxgurugamer said:

The purple box seems to indicate the mod isn't installed properly

To wit, @InvaderGIR, make sure the mod lives in the GameData\Diazo\RCSLandAid folder. That should contain all the Plugins, Plugindata, MiniAVC.dll etc. Post a screenshot of the mod files address if you're unsure.

[Atlas Gaming]

I can confirm that the HLA mod has a bug with 1.8. There is a purple square on top of any rocket with the mod running. You have to click on the mod button a couple of times to get rid of the square. My guess is some initialization with the new unity engine. 

[linuxgurugamer]

5 hours ago, Atlas Gaming said:

I can confirm that the HLA mod has a bug with 1.8. There is a purple square on top of any rocket with the mod running. You have to click on the mod button a couple of times to get rid of the square. My guess is some initialization with the new unity engine. 

I can confirm that the mod has Not yet been updated for 1.8

[Atlas Gaming]

With all due appreciation for maintaining the mods... this mod is listed as compatible with ANY version not as 1.7.x in CKAN version. Had it not been listed as compatible  I'd have not mentioned on here that it isn't with 1.8 .

[linuxgurugamer]

New release, 3.4.0

• Updated for KSP 1.8

[ioulaum]

Hi @linuxgurugamer,

Thank you for making this great mod.

I've noticed that when launching there is a big pinkish box on the side of command pod that can only be wiped out by clicking the LA button.

Edited November 5, 2019 by ioulaum

[linuxgurugamer]

Just now, ioulaum said:

Hi @linuxgurugamer,

Thank you for making this great mod.

I've noticed that when launching there are a big pinkish box on the side of command pod that can only be wiped out by clicking the LA button.

I'll take a look this evening

[linuxgurugamer]

3.4.0.1

• Fixed shader issue which was showing a ping square upon launching

[showell373]

It also seems to be happening on the vertical velocity controller mod.....